Bids me come and die, and find that I May Truly Live.

O the wonderful Cross, Oh the wonderful Cross,

Bids me come and die, And find that I may truly live.

The line above is taken from the chorus of the song "O The Wonderful Cross". I've known and sang this song for quite some time, ever since I come to church, but I've never really understand it until these recent few months.

A couple of months back, God allowed something that I don't wish it to happen, happened to me.  During that moment of time, my heart was really really torn down and tears flow like streams of river down my cheek. However looking back from now, I'm glad it happened.

When I was heartbroken, and knowing that there's nothing I can do, I loosen up my grip on everything in life and gave God total authority in my life, knowing that God is sovereign, and believing in His promises and love. There's this joy in my heart.

so, what about it?

When it was few months back, I find myself helpless and I just had enough of it that it's breaking me in two, it's then that I really really gave my broken heart to Jesus, truly let go of everything, even my life, to Jesus, it's then that I find the meaning to life, joy and peace in my heart, I find life, life that flows from God.

Phillipians 1:21, Paul says that "for me, to live is Christ, to die is gain." When living becomes a life that is lived for Christ, and when you value Christ more than everything including your own life, that you're willing to sacrifice even your own life for Him, It's then you find that you may truly live.

It may sound strange, but note that it's true. A mystery.

Knowing that Jesus had compassion on me, gave me grace and mercy, died the cruel death that I should had on the cross for me, loving me and wants me to see His glory and delight in Him and me knowing that I'm a wretch that don't deserve these at all, makes my heart so thankful of that and I just want to love God fully and give Him everything that I can, acknowledging that He's my God, King and Lord, Savior and Redeemer, The Treasure of my life.

As I told you before in the previous post, The World is like the broken cistern, and God is the Fount of Living Water, It's when you turn to Him that you may find your thirst quenched. The World is dead, and life flows from God,

It's when you are so captured by the Cross and you truly gave everything to God that you may find that you may truly live.

Broken Cisterns That Can Hold No Water

Many people thinks that the way to be happy and satisfied in life is to posses a certain amount of something that they want and long for. Possessing things that they think it can satisfy them the most. For some it's money, for some is sexual pleasure, for some is positions, recognition, popularity, family, and so on. But do they really satisfy us?

• Wealth

look at what King David says about wealth,

Eccl 5:10 Whoever loves money never has money enough;
       whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income.
       This too is meaningless.

Many people thought that if they have all the riches they want they can be happy. However, many claimed that they aren't really happy when they got all the money they wanted. Besides that, your possession here on earth will not follow you when you die. So is wealth the key to one's satisfaction?

• Sexual Pleasures

The following statements is shared by one Uni student on one of J.D. Greear's sermon saying:

As I enter the university life, I found myself indulging in sex more and more but enjoying it less and less.

Indulging in Pornography, Masturbation, Sexual engagement does not result in a satisfaction that last for long. People are trapped here because they are addicted yet they find themselves enjoying less and less. Is this the key to life's happiness?

• Positions, Recognition, Authority

How long can a person stay in charge or have authority over something? Don't a person worry? Don't enemies emerge? Don't the worries of losing a position freak someone out? You get recognize for a moment but soon be forgotten. Does all these satisfy you?

There are many more, but somehow, there's just always an emptiness that is in us when we run after this things. Even King David, one of the greatest King of Israel, who possessed everything we wanted, wealth, women, authority and so much more said that everything is meaningless. look,

Eccl 12:7 and the dust returns to the ground it came from,
       and the spirit returns to God who gave it.

Eccl 12:8 "Meaningless! Meaningless!" says the Teacher. ^[a]
       "Everything is meaningless!"

So why is there this emptiness in us? I believe it's telling us that we don't really belong to all these. Besides that, look at what God said,

13 "My people have committed two sins:

  They have

forsaken me,

the spring of living water

,
       and       

have dug their own cisterns,

broken cisterns that cannot

hold water.

 

Whenever we search for pleasures that doesn't come from God, we are like digging up our own broken cisterns that can hold no water, and

we are trying to quench our thirst in this broken cisterns by licking on it and getting our tongue cut, bruised and bleed.

Besides that,

when we ignore God, we're ignoring the Spring of Living Water that can quench our thirst.

So how do you expect us to be satisfied if we keep on seeking and digging our own broken cisterns and not turn to God?

It's a choice for you:

1. BROKEN CISTERNS
2. SPRING OF LIVING WATER

WHICH WOULD YOU CHOOSE?

Joel Lee Weng Yew said...

The meaning behind the 'therefore' is actually more significant.
To understand it, we have to go to Romans, where Paul says Jesus died for our sins and was raised for our justification (Romans 4:25).
Crossing over to Philippians, Paul says that as a result of Jesus' perfect obedience, He was considered righteous and therefore God exalted Him to the highest place. It is this righteousness that is imputed to us - thus Jesus was raised for our justification.
This exalting is essentially referring to the reality that Jesus had all authority in heaven and on earth, as we can also see at the end of Ephesians 1.

Summing up the argument, the basis for commissioning the apostles to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them and teaching them to obey everything Jesus had commanded them was that all authority in heaven and on earth belonged to Jesus. Jesus was essentially describing His Father's act of exaltation. And we know the foundation of that exaltation was the perfect obedience, and thus righteousness, of Jesus. And it is this righteousness that is imputed to us for our justification. Therefore the basis of our evangelism and discipleship is that Jesus had indeed completed His mission to secure our justification and reconcile us back to God.

tim said...

actually, He just mean GO

Comfort in the Great Commission

"19Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

The sentence above is a verse taken from Matthew 28:19-20. It is also well known as the great commission.

Jesus told his disciples this when the disciples met Him after He was resurrected. This two verses had spurred many hearts of the people to take up the call to reach out to the people and preach the gospel. Without Jesus commissioning them to make disciples, I personally think many of us would not had even heard of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

At the same time, I'm sure many of us had also take up this call and tried to preach the gospel to our friends, relatives and family members and so on too. And I know there are times where we get discouraged when our friend just seem so uninterested and not convicted by the Holy Spirit. I know it because it's a feeling that I feel it too sometimes.

But you know what? The very God who commissioned us, Jesus Himself has promised to be with us always to the end of age too. Indeed that is a comfort and encouragement that God is always there with us even during that period of time.

However, we always miss out something really important here. if you read carefully in this two verses, the first word of verse 19 is "therefore".

SO, I think this verse should be read together with the verse before it if we want to get a clearer perspective of the verse. Verse 18 states that "18Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me."

If you read both together, it will sound something like Jesus saying because He(Jesus) now has complete authority on both heaven and earth, so go and make disciples and......

We are to make disciple of all the earth because we have to tell them the good news that Jesus is the one and only God and the King that is sovereign over all, and THE KING died for us. Besides that, because He has all authority, it makes things hopeful even when our friends are not convicted by our message because we know that God has complete authority over all and He has his own plans.

In short, find your comfort and encouragement in this two promises:

1. God is always with you till the end. (verse 20)

2. God has all authority even when you reach out, and even over the lives of your friend and the conviction of the Holy Spirit in the heart of your friend. (verse 19)

Fight the good fight and run the good race, persevere! God Bless!

The Place called "Alone"

This post will most probably sound a bit like "Do You Really Believe What You Believe?".. But it is still something in my heart today.

All of us have a place called alone.

So what exactly is this place? Of course it is not just one place(meaning not only one place but can be many) or it's a spiritual realm or something. It's basically just..The moment you're alone and no one is watching you. It is that moment where most of us becomes our own real self and there's no more pretending or acting(both subconsciously and consciously). It's a place where all the skeletons in the closet come to life.

Well, of course if your skeletons are in good shape then it will come out good, but if it's rotten and full of worms then.....there's no need for me to say anything about that..

So what about this place called alone?

Remember the previous post about believing what you believe? Well, we believe that God is everywhere, He's with us no matter what. In our sadness we cry out for Him to be there and even in our joy we thank God. However, don't we realize that God is also with us when we're alone? And do we REALLY BELIEVE that God is everywhere? I realize sometimes we act as if He's not.

Therefore, whenever we are alone, we should always remind ourselves that though no one is there God is still there with us. The reason why I posted this is because I known of friends that are tempted the most when they are alone, to lust, curse, hate, rage.... It includes me too sometimes.. Our goal in our life is to please God, and now we know that He is there even when we're alone.

So, what will happen to this place called "alone"? If we truly want to please God then it includes our place call "alone" too..

Have a good day, God bless.

Oh, and let this place called alone be the secret place or that quiet place where we commune with God and hear from him and really let go everything and express our worship to Him. AMEN.

if you don't understand, in short it means.. live a life for God, and don't just put up a show. When we're alone, God is with us too.. But sometimes we tend to act as if God is not there.. So just a reminder that God is there even when you're alone! TQ! LOL

Man is not Ultimate

Today I had my rocket competition in school. Being the 1st runner up for three years makes complete sense if I win it, besides that my rocket was THE ONE that people look up to.

However..

Long story short, I lost to some unknown guy with an unknown rocket.

Of course I wasn't really happy about it but it reminded me of something. Anything happens with a purpose and who knows maybe if I win I would be proud(which isn't good) and God made me lose in order teach me to be humble? In that I rejoice.

Yet, what strikes me most is that it reminded me that I am not the boss. No matter how promising some things may look like, the big boss who controls all is still God.

So in all that we do let us not boast in our strength but make our boast in God. God is the CREATOR and He's SOVEREIGN after all.

Have a good day. God bless.

Do You Really Believe What You Believe?

haha It's been such a long time I've not blog. Many things happened.

Anyways, this thought had been lingering in my mind for quite a bit these few days.

"DO YOU REALLY BELIEVE WHAT YOU BELIEVE?"

You heard from the news reports and read from the newspapers or learn from school that lightning strikes are dangerous and can be fatal. So, you heard it, and you believe it, and because you believe it, you avoid going swimming or standing in an open area when there's a thunderstorm. IF you do so, you really do believe that lightning strikes are dangerous.

You heard that fuel prices are hiking up by tmr. You believe it. Therefore, you refill your fuel tank before midnight in order to save some money. You really believe what you believe.

You know and believe that fire is capable of burning you. Therefore you stay away from the fire in order to avoid getting burn.

As Christians, we know and believe that:

God is

• awesome
• infinite in power
• infinite in wisdom
• sovereign over all.
• holy
• hates sin
• King
• .....

SO, as you can see right before the list, everytime we believe a certain fact, it's follow up with an action. When we believe in something, we tend to do something to act according to it.

hmmm.. Let's go through the list up there about what we believe God is..

It would be nice if we say that we believe it.. but do we really believe what we believe?
It's a question we should ask ourselves..

For example, if we believe He's infinite in wisdom, why sometimes we human don't trust that God knows what's best for us and we still do things our way?

If He's King why do we sometimes approach Him and act as if we're the boss instead?

do we really BELIEVE what we believe??

lets take some time to ponder through this question, of course all of us have failures and it is by God's grace and by Jesus' sacrifice that we are saved. Yet, it is best for us to take sometime to think through these now. SO, If we really believe, lets not just say we believe but lets seek out and really believe in it.

Do You Really Believe What You Believe?